


Skin Care

by decaf_kitty



Category: Naruto
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, KakaIru Exchange 2019, Kissing, M/M, Masks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-05-29 17:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19404841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decaf_kitty/pseuds/decaf_kitty
Summary: Iruka was a murderous combination of ice-frost and steel. The chūnin looked down at Kakashi – and then proceeded onwards with his horrific torture.Torture that Kakashi had never known until the last few months.He had so many new emotional scars because of Iruka!Utterly unfeeling, Iruka splashed his face with warm water.





	Skin Care

**Author's Note:**

  * For [manzokuda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/manzokuda/gifts).



> This is my submission for the 2019 KakaIru Fest Exchange! Manzokuda's fascinating prompt proved quite inspiring, and so I wrote this story for them.
> 
> This is my first Established Relationship fic. It is also one of my few Domestic Fluff stories.
> 
> I hope Manzokuda - and you - enjoy. Thank you for reading.
> 
> ____

Yet again Kakashi was sulking in a chair in the bathroom. He had recently become an expert in sulking. He had the slouch down. He’d pout his lips a little. Crease his mismatched eyes just so. Stare up at Iruka. Flutter his grey eyelashes a few times in a row.

It never worked, of course. Iruka was a murderous combination of ice-frost and steel. The chūnin looked down at Kakashi - and then proceeded onwards with his horrific torture.

Torture that Kakashi had never known until the last few months. 

He had so many new emotional scars because of Iruka! 

Utterly unfeeling, Iruka splashed his face with warm water. 

As usual, Kakashi flinched and sputtered dramatically. He had to restrain himself from flickering away and cleaning his face elsewhere like an obsessive cat. Clutching the sides of the chair, he sulked even further, disliking this part most of all. Kakashi struggled to keep his eyes closed as Iruka smoothed the small towel over both his bare cheeks and then did the worst thing ever.

He brought out the apricot exfoliant face scrub. 

Iruka’s fingertips were calloused from endless weapon practice, but he always tried to be careful when he rubbed exfoliant into Kakashi’s wet skin. Nevertheless, the chūnin was a monster, a literal monster, as he circled the scrub into various oily spots on Kakashi’s bared face. He was rather tender around Kakashi’s scar tissue, which was secretly much appreciated.

Even so, the sensation was too much: it felt like Iruka was grinding fruity glass into his flesh.

“This is my least favorite part,” Kakashi whined out loud. He presented his most perfect frown in attempt to gain sympathy from Iruka. It had a little wobble to it as if he might break into tears at any second.

Ever the terrifying beast, Iruka only splashed his face with more water. Kakashi pursed his lips tighter together, afraid that the scrub might get into his mouth. For smelling so good, he had learned the hard way that it tasted disgusting. Plus, the little beads that supposedly opened up his pores got stuck in his teeth. 

So, apparently, people took care of their faces. 

Well, no one had told Kakashi. 

They’d been too busy saying ‘Go kill so-and-so.’

It was on their third date when they were so very wasted and Iruka was draped across him, sitting in his lap, playfully tugging on his mask. The chūnin had turned those lovely dark eyes up to meet Kakashi’s one exposed eye, and he had confusingly wondered aloud, “Do you wash your face every day?”

Kakashi had run a hand through Iruka’s loose hair, enjoying the sight of his glove’s metal panel glinting amidst the dark brown ocean. “What do you mean?” he asked in return.

Practically purring at the attention, Iruka had bitten his bottom lip, closing his eyes. “You know what I mean,” he said. “You wear that mask all the time. What do you do for your skin?”

It had taken another date and a half before Kakashi dared ask what Iruka meant. He had the chūnin in his lap again, this time straddling him, and Iruka was panting sweet and sultry in his ear, the one without coverage from his mask and headband. While grinding against the other man, Kakashi had inquired with purposeful lightness, “Should I be doing something with my face?”

Iruka licked the curve of Kakashi’s ear, making Kakashi shudder and tighten his grip on the man’s thighs. “You do have a skin care routine, don’t you?” the chūnin murmured, sounding almost amused.

“No?” was not the right answer.

It was their sixth date – and after they’d already had sex twice – when Kakashi slipped down his mask and stared at the ceiling while Iruka looked over his face for the first time.

So began the torture of the last five months.

Kakashi knew he was squirming impatiently in the chair, but he couldn’t stop himself. He almost winced away from Iruka’s fingers when the man went to hold his chin in place. But Iruka was strong-willed and absolutely merciless: he kept Kakashi in check while he brushed away the last of the exfoliant scrub with a wet hand towel.

Then there was the little warm towel… Iruka patted his skin dry with deadly precision. He got every last corner of Kakashi’s face, finding spots that Kakashi had previously not known existed. 

He’d learned early on not to bite Iruka’s fingers – it got his nose twisted.

So Kakashi sulked further down in the chair, frowning, waiting for it to be over.

But – wait – he liked this next part – so he perked up slightly, just in time.

Ever so softly, Iruka drew his fingers into Kakashi’s silver-grey hair and began massaging his rarely-touched scalp. He relished it so much that he found himself trembling in the chair. For being such a devil in disguise, Iruka could be very kind: he was generous in his attention to the base of Kakashi’s skull where tension gathered and won him wracking headaches. The chūnin was both firm and reassuring on Kakashi’s temples, rubbing them in familiar circles. 

Being as attuned to his body as he was, Kakashi could feel his blood circulating better within seconds. This was the second session this week, which meant Iruka wasn’t using coconut oil to replenish Kakashi’s hair. Today’s massage was for stress relief… and intimacy, Kakashi could admit privately to himself. Even if he hated the first part of spa day, this –

“This is my favorite part,” Kakashi whispered, closing his eyes in contentment. 

Iruka simply replied, “I know.”

The massage lasted a long while, enough that Kakashi became drowsy. He felt a little like he was floating away on little white clouds. Always so silent during these moments, tonight Iruka continued to stroke Kakashi’s scalp well past he normally did. He… he was very kind. Too kind.

Iruka was the only one who had seen his face since Kakashi had gotten his scar. Before then, Kakashi’s father had seen him, as had medical-nin: none of them ever stirred up too much fuss about his looks. But, after the slicing motion of a dagger and Rin replacing his busted eye with Obito’s, Kakashi had become protective of his face. Years earlier, he had covered up with a mask, but, now with a hitai-ate concealing even more of his face, there seemed no reason to show himself to… well, to anyone, really. 

There’d been enough flirting between him and Iruka to fill a few romance novels. Obviously it happened well after the whole ‘they’re not your students anymore, you stupid chūnin’ and ‘you’re right, but I hope you suffer forever.’ It was Iruka’s good call to extend the olive branch by asking him out to dinner, but it was Kakashi who had dipped him over in the moonlight and asked in a deliberately over-the-top suave way, “Can I come upstairs?” 

He was very relieved – and impressed – that the chūnin had tolerated not kissing.

In fact, Iruka loved kissing Kakashi everywhere else. Similarly, the man did not seem to dislike Kakashi kissing his body through a mask, and it had made Kakashi realize that he really, truly loved kissing. His face was ridiculously sensitive, and Iruka was very passionate, leading to all sorts of fireworks from stimulation he could have never imagined.

Kakashi had finally taken down his mask and shown Iruka his face not so they could kiss – but so Iruka could assess the condition of his perpetually-clothed skin.

Apparently, there was a lot of work to be done.

So now they had four spa day sessions every week.

This was Session Number 96. Kakashi wasn’t sure if anything changed at Number 100, but he was looking forward to it.

“Okay, Kakashi,” Iruka said firmly as he removed his hands. “I have to grade now.”

He always used that tone when things finished up because Kakashi always tried to pout his way into a more extensive massage or maybe even some kisses. However, this time, Kakashi felt more than a bit out of it. He gazed up with his own eye and the open Sharingan at the man smiling softly down at him. 

“Which side do you like best?” Kakashi asked suddenly. He was brimming with curiosity about the issue, even though he’d never really contemplated it before now. 

Iruka only looked at him with perfect dryness before turning around and walking away.

In an instant, Kakashi was following behind him, shirtless and wearing his tight ANBU pants. He knew better than to get in front of Iruka after eight months of dating the other man: Iruka had no problem going for an improvised spar in the living room. Of course, Kakashi should have always won any physical fights between them, but he had discovered that Iruka was not against twisting nipples and kissing between thighs to change the tide of battle.

So he kept about twelve inches of distance as he asked again with more interest, “Do you like the light side or the dark side?” 

For emphasis, Kakashi felt compelled to point out different parts of his face as he posed the question. They had never discussed it before, but what he meant could not have been more obvious. He knew that the distinction between different segments of his face was as shocking as seeing Sexy No Jutsu or being blasted by a Great Fireball. However, when Iruka had seen the differences between the upper and lower sections of his face, he'd decided that Kakashi needed better skincare overall. Although he had plenty of opportunities to do so, Iruka had never mentioned the differing sections of Kakashi's face.

Because the top-right corner of Kakashi’s face was constantly exposed to the elements, the skin there was measurably darker than half his cheeks downwards. Admittedly, compared to most people in Konoha, that portion was still quite pale… but, then again, they hadn’t seen his nose or chin. On rare occasions when Kakashi was alone and feeling loose, he’d look at his complicated, segmented face and wonder if he was as white as scroll paper. He had been tempted before to compare shades of white to different parts of his face… was the tip of his nose eggshell white? was the upper portion of his right cheek like the inside of a white peach? 

Certainly Iruka must have noticed the difference in age and stress written into his skin, if not the color disparity... hadn't he?

For whatever reason, Kakashi had never felt much pressure to keep his eyes wide open: he tended to look lazily about, keeping original eye and Sharingan half-lidded. 

Regardless, time had done him a disservice, as had sunlight. His left eye had little spider-web wrinkles underneath, on the corner, below his silver brow. It definitely wasn’t as bad as Itachi Uchiha's exhausted features, but he did have crow’s feet on his left eye, often making him think of his ex-ANBU subordinate. Of course, Kakashi imagined very few people ever noticed his wrinkles since most shinobi and civilians stayed away from him or at least kept appropriate distance. He didn’t particularly feel vain about his older side: the skin hung looser, the lines were fine, the flesh was darker and tanned. But that was just how people aged! It made sense that it would happen to him, too.

Sun damage had been Iruka’s most significant concern. He’d spent a silly amount of time explaining that excessive UV exposure had led to Kakashi’s skin discoloration and blotchiness – and that it could cause skin cells to become cancerous. 

Although Kakashi had dismissed Iruka’s request to see a specialist medical-nin, he had also started applying sunscreen during missions. At first, the other jōnin had made fun of him, but Kakashi had smiled under his mask and told them serenely, “I’m not dying on this mission, and I’m not dying of cancer. You’re free to die however you want.”

He had noticed a few more shinobi putting on sunscreen lately.

Only Kakashi and Iruka knew the truth: a permanent tan line swept across the middle of his face. The lower portion – much of his cheeks and nose, the entirety of his chin and jaw – was creamy white and unwrinkled. The upper portion was quite tan by comparison. The skin also showed the effects of stress and age like the work of an amateur sketch artist who shadowed too much. 

The dark side was the upper half of his face. The light side was the lower.

He knew Iruka did not need any directions since the man had spent so much time touching his face, but Kakashi tapped his too-white chin several times anyway, trying to get Iruka to look back at him. 

“The secret side?” 

He ran a finger along the wrinkled underneath of his always-visible right eye when Iruka finally glanced at him. They paused in Iruka’s well-loved living room as Kakashi eagerly added, excited to have gotten the chūnin’s attention, “Or the façade?” 

As he spoke, Kakashi used one hand to fully cover the lower part of his face in imitation of his mask. “Eh? What do you think, Iruka? Dark, light? Old, young? Which side do you like best?”

Iruka looked remarkably puzzled by the series of questions. He crossed his arms over his chest and gave Kakashi a heavy, skeptical up-and-down study. 

“Do you really think there’s only two sides of you?”

Immediately Kakashi lifted a finger into the air, delighted by the idea. 

“You’re right, Iruka!” he declared and then pointed at the rectangle of skin around the Sharingan. “I have three parts, don’t I? Three colors, three kinds of damage.” 

Kakashi quite liked the argument: the skin surrounding his right and left eye were markedly different from each other, one being old and life-burdened, the other being unblemished but scarred. His black eye was simple, steady. His Sharingan was shifting, spinning, startling in its power. Undoubtedly, his face could have been split vertically down the middle if he didn’t wear the horizontal mask all the time. 

Before Iruka could respond, Kakashi added, just too intrigued by the conceptual design: “Left side, weak side. Right side, strong side.” 

He brought his hand over the Sharingan, showing only his own dark eye. “Lazy sensei…” Kakashi moved his fingers to cover his eye, flexing open the red-and-black bloodline jutsu. “… or Copy Nin?” 

He waggled both silver eyebrows and summarized it with: “Kakashi-sensei, or Kakashi of the Sharingan?”

Iruka was watching his performance with his own suspicious eyes. The man’s brown features continued to interest Kakashi a great deal, especially the unusual scar that bisected the chūnin’s face. He found Iruka’s darker skin tone exceptionally appealing. In fact, Kakashi had become downright fascinated with their differences when he’d stripped Iruka of all his shinobi-sensei gear. 

The first time they’d had sex – a surprising amount of it had been Kakashi studying his blinding-white hands pressing into the dark brown flesh of Iruka’s ass, kneading the muscles like a cat.

Just like that time, Iruka did not seem particularly pleased with Kakashi’s strange preoccupation.

The chūnin narrowed his eyebrows, keeping his arms crossed over his chest, and asked in a slow, forceful way, “Kakashi, are you being serious right now?”

Kakashi felt very much like a scolded student; he deflated straightaway. He slipped his hands into his ANBU pants and rocked backwards on his bare heels. Glancing away from Iruka and examining the ceiling, he shrugged and replied shortly, “No, I was just playing around.”

He’d been stupid, he’d been bothering Iruka again.

Iruka uncrossed his arms and stepped forward, coming closer to him. Following the movement in his peripheral vision, Kakashi made sure not to tense when the other man gently touched his face. With easy delicacy, Iruka drifted his fingertips across Kakashi’s mask-line, the horizontal one that separated peach and white, aged and ageless, damaged and pristine. The chūnin leaned even closer… and then kissed the bridge of Kakashi’s nose.

Ah, the center of his face.

Unable to stop himself, Kakashi looked back down at Iruka as heat rose to his cheeks. He wasn’t sure what to say, but fortunately his boyfriend was there to rescue him from embarrassment. 

“I think,” Iruka mused as he wrapped his arms around Kakashi’s bare waist. “You have an infinite number of sides.” 

The man’s eyes were dark and loving, vast and wondrous. They were so unbelievably stunning this close; Kakashi felt more heat flush up through his neck, his cheeks. Yet Iruka was also cruel on his rescue mission. He continued, perfectly ardent, “I could never choose just one of them.”

Oh so soft, Iruka kissed the black beauty mark by Kakashi’s mouth. His eyes suddenly radiated the lively warmth that had first attracted Kakashi like a dazed moth to a flame.

“Call me greedy,” Iruka murmured, nuzzling his scarred nose along Kakashi’s bright-white jawline, “But I want all of you. Every last part of you. I want everything.”

It was difficult, but Kakashi answered all challenges, so he pulled Iruka off of him and dipped the man down like their first date when he’d proposed coming upstairs after drinks.

For a second, the chūnin looked surprised – and then he remembered the position – and he smiled, looking impressively embarrassed. Iruka went to scratch his scar out of awkwardness, but Kakashi grabbed his hand and pressed it beside the Sharingan and his scar. 

He said the first thing that came to mind, which was:

“Thank you for helping me. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

And Iruka instantly responded, his expression tender and true:

“You’re beautiful, Kakashi. I love everything about you.”

It was the first time that love had been brought into conversation, and it was immediately obvious that Iruka had been swept up in the romance novel roleplay. Even though Kakashi was definitely stronger, the chūnin struggled to get out of the embrace. He almost certainly wanted to start grading in shame, hoping nothing would be mentioned about his slip-up. 

But Kakashi was radiating intent. Not killing intent! Affectionate intent. Loving intent.

They had kissed before – lips to lips – several times, but it had always been cautious and slow. 

This time, here and now, Kakashi kissed Iruka with crushing intensity. Forcing his fingers through Iruka’s bound hair, he destroyed the chūnin’s ponytail. He kept the man bent over backwards in the hold until Iruka finally, pleasantly, impeccably responded and kissed him back with strength well beyond a chūnin-sensei. 

Oh, yes, Iruka was giving so many new emotional scars. Good, glorious scars. He loved them – and Iruka, too.


End file.
